Escape to the Wild (Day 10 – Encounter)

We found out in the morning that the road to Mammoth Hot Springs, which had been closed for construction, was finally open again to the public.  So, we decided to head up there before it closed again.  We stopped at the Woodside Bakery to grab some sandwiches and head off into Yellowstone.  To say that the day unfolded like an unimaginable dream would be an understatement.  There is no way that we could ever have planned or even thought up what was about to happen.  I asked God to show us His wonders, and He came through above and beyond!

Just inside the park entrance, we pulled over, so I could take a picture of what looked like an eagle’s nest high upon the mountain.  At the time, I didn’t realize that there was a bull elk walking through the field in front of me.  It was a good distance off, but I had been waiting to see a bull, as all we’d see so far were cows.  So, after snapping a few pictures as he walked in the morning sunlight, I had an idea.  I asked my wife to stopped a little ways up the road, so I could hike through the forest and get in front of him.  I had to literally squeeze between the young lodgepole pines, which were so thick and close together that they snagged on my clothing as I passed.  After a couple of minutes of squeezing between trees, trudging through the snow, and leaping across fallen trees, I finally came to a little clearing on the top of the hill.  Immediately to my left was a small herd of cows.  They looked completely surprised to see me pop through the trees, not so quietly I’m ashamed to admit, but they didn’t run off.  They just stared at me.

All of a sudden, within a hundred feet of my right, I heard an elk bull bugle a warning call.  I hadn’t even seen the other herd, but apparently they had seen me.  A group of cows and fawns emerged from the trees and began to scamper down the hill, followed by a huge bull elk.  He stopped, looked right at me, bugled again, and then raced down the hill to catch up with the others.  I was sad that I scared them off.  I hadn’t meant to do that, but it was an exhilarating experience to be that close to them.  After squeezing back through the trees, we headed on again.  At the very next bend in the road, there was a group of cars stopped on the side of the road with people all crouched down taking pictures of something in the field below.  As we slowed down, I noticed that they were all looking at the fleeing elk herd that I had just scared.  So, all of those people should thank me for giving them that experience!

Our first planned destination was Gibbons Falls.  It’s a neat waterfall that cuts through the mountain and then fans out before plummeting into the river below.  They have an overlook built, so you can view the waterfall from above as it cascades down.  The morning sunlight was just right to shine on the rushing water, and a rainbow arched in front of the falls arrayed in all of its colors.  We took a few minutes to just enjoy the roaring sound of the falls before moving on again up the road.

That was when we were blessed with our next unexpected encounter.  A very large group of cars were parked along the road and in every pullout.  We stopped, because this usually means some sort of animal sighting.  A crowd of this size could only mean something rare and special.  We joined the throng of people staring across the river, cameras trained on a splotch of trees.  Piecing together the murmurs, we learned that a grizzly bear sow and her two cubs were hanging out on the other side of the river, eating and enjoying the morning sun.  We found a good spot and waited.  It took about ten minutes for us to catch our first glimpse before they disappeared in the trees, and even then it was only the back and backside of the mother.  We moved further down river, following their path, and caught a few glimpses of the cubs, chomping on some grubs.  The grizzlies kept moving down river, and we kept following until they finally made a brief appearance right in front of us.  The mother bear was big with a head the size of a car tire.  The cubs, who someone said were about one year old, were pretty plump and fluffy.  One cub was the grayish-brown of a grizzly, the other was dark, dark brown almost black.

After that the bears changed direction and headed back up river.  So, again we all followed, when all of a sudden they lumbered down the hill toward the river.  So, we watched them as they walked along the river bank in full view, the various shades of grayish-brown on display in the sunlight.  The cubs dashing ahead as the mother slowly brought up the rear.  Then, the cubs would stop to explore and play, while the mother would stop to dig up and eat something from the ground.  Slowly, slowly they made their way along the river and then up the mountain.

We weren’t sure how we’d ever top that once in a lifetime opportunity.  We had heard people say that they had been coming to Yellowstone ten years without ever seeing a bear, and we saw one on our first time.  We stopped next at the Beryl Spring, which is the hottest thermal pool in Yellowstone.  While not a large pool, it was releasing an enormous amount of steam into the cool air.  From there, we stopped to scarf down our sandwiches and then off again toward Mammoth Hot Springs.

When we got to Norris, we found ourselves in a traffic jam as a herd of bison meandered across the road.  One bison went out first and stood in the middle of the road.  She just stood there, not moving, looking completely uninterested.  Slowly, slowly the other bison walked across the road, but that one didn’t move.  We figured she must have been the crossing guard.  When about half the herd, which was really large, had made it across the road, another younger bison stopped next to the crossing guard, and the crossing guard walked on across the road.  That younger bison then stood completely still in the middle of the road while the rest of the herd crossed.  We assumed that she must have been a crossing guard in training.

While the road to Mammoth Hot Springs was open, it still had construction on it.  So, we got stuck in a long line of cars, sitting and waiting for 45 minutes for our turn to drive down the one-lane road past the construction.  Many heated words and honks were exchanged between our car and the pilot car, which was doing 2 mph.  We finally made it through the construction and nearly drove right by the Mammoth Hot Springs.  They were not exactly what we were expecting.  For one thing, they were almost completely dried up.  They just looked like a big white hill.  The hot springs are divided into terraces that feature different pools and structures, each one unique.  My favorite was the Mound Spring.  It had many different formations of limestone and thermophile that made it fascinating.  Not to mention the slow stream of water cascading down the surface would ripple and glint in the sunlight.  The sound was peaceful and calming, like a waterfall pouring into a small brook.

We moved on up the hill to see some other terraces, when all of a sudden I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.  I grabbed my wife to stop her, as a grey fox bounded out of the snow right toward me.  He veered off behind a hill, so I pursued him down the walkway.  He ran straight at the walkway, dived under it, and then kept going on the other side.  His fur was a beautiful mixture of reds, grays, blacks, and whites.  He seemed unperturbed by my presence as he disappeared into the brush.  It ranked up there with the bear for coolness factor.

On a whim, my wife wanted to drive through the small town of Mammoth Hot Springs, so we decided to make a quick tour and then be on our way.  We no sooner entered the town, then we saw two huge bull elks eating grass near a café.  We pulled over to watch them, having never been this close to them before.  All of a sudden, the bigger of the two bulls charged the other one.  They locked antlers and began to have a shoving and twisting match around a small bush.  The park ranger that was there with us said that they were just hose-playing.  This might be a real fight during mating season, but that was long over.  The more we watched them circle and shove each other, the more they looked like two brothers wrestling in their parents living room.  As they played, they made these high-pitched grunts and yelps.  This went on for several minutes, until one of them lost interest and walked off around the corner to find some grass that wasn’t trampled down by wrestling elk.  We were amazed by the enormity of these bulls.  Their backs were level with the top of the cars they were passing, and their antlers stuck up past the roof of our SUV.

It was getting late, and we had a long drive back to the entrance of the park, so we headed back.  We got stuck in the construction traffic again going the other way, and then it was home free.  It was pitch black before we made it back to the gate, so I asked my wife to pull over in one of the turnouts by the river.  There were a million stars in the sky, something we don’t ever get to see in the bright lights of the city…layer upon layer…as far as the eye could see.  As we stood there looking at the beautiful array of stars scattered across the bluish-black sky, we started to hear bugling in the distance.  The call of one elk bull was answered by another directly across the river from us.  Back and forth they called to each other.  The night was so quiet that we could even hear antlers clacking in the darkness as two bulls wrestled with each other.

We finished our night by grabbing a pizza at Pete’s Pizza and heading back to the hotel to eat it.